# Auditing the order-to-cash process

> Quotes, orders, delivery, invoicing, collections: rebuild the real sales cycle, its re-keying between CRM and ERP, and its exceptions.

Source : https://tellmehow.io/en/use-cases/order-to-cash · Updated on : 2026-10-18

Sales, order administration, logistics, and accounts receivable each describe their own link in the chain. TellMeHow interviews them one by one, sees their screens, and reassembles the full chain, re-keying and exceptions included.

For a firm auditing a client’s sales cycle, TellMeHow runs voice interviews with every team from quote to cash while seeing their shared screen, then rebuilds the end-to-end process with its steps, tools, variants, and the evidence behind each finding.

### A chain nobody sees end to end

Sales builds the quote in the CRM, order administration turns it into an order in the ERP, logistics picks and ships, and accounting invoices and chases payment. Each team knows its own step and assumes the rest. The breaks hide at the handoffs: an order number copied from one tool to another, a discount approved over email, a delivery note that comes back on paper. Key accounts often follow their own rules, known to two or three people.

### Why this process is hard to audit

#### Re-keying is visible, not described

In an interview, order administration says “I enter the order in the ERP.” Only the screen shows the field-by-field copy and paste from the CRM, with the tracking spreadsheet open alongside.

#### Exceptions run the day

Custom pricing, partial orders, discount approval above a threshold, a customer on credit hold: the standard path described in meetings rarely covers most real orders.

#### Each team has its own version of approval

Sales believes order administration checks credit limits, and order administration believes accounting does. These gaps only surface when interviews are cross-checked, which takes time when done by hand.

### The approach, in four steps

Your method stays yours: TellMeHow follows the guide you built and leaves you in control of the analysis.

#### Prepare a guide for each team

Start from your method, add the client’s context (CRM, ERP, in-house acronyms), and create one population per team. For order administration, you might ask for a demonstration of entering a key-account order.

#### Let everyone take their interview

Each participant gets a personal link and talks to the AI interviewer whenever it suits them, sharing their screen. It asks to see the quote conversion, the invoice, and the collections file, and confirms the volumes mentioned.

#### Cross-check the versions

The analysis joins the links into a single process, flags re-keying and steps with no described input, and sets incompatible versions of the same approval side by side. It suggests short follow-ups to settle them.

#### Deliver the map to the client

You review, edit, choose the publishable evidence, and publish a navigable deliverable under your brand: the order-to-cash process, its variants, its sourced findings, and the opportunities you selected.

### Example: an industrial supplies distributor

Illustrative example, not a client case.

B2B distributor with 180 employees, three branches, and a CRM and ERP that are not connected.

- Inside sales
- Order administration
- Logistics
- Accounts receivable

- Preparing and tracking quotes
- Order entry and approval
- Picking and delivery
- Invoicing and credit notes
- Overdue invoice follow-up

- Turning an accepted quote into an order in the ERP
- Preparing the weekly reminder run for overdue invoices

Order numbers and lines are copied by hand from the CRM into the ERP, about 40 orders a day according to order administration.

Any discount above 15% for a key account is approved by the sales director over email, outside any tool.

Overdue invoices are chased every Monday from an export filtered by hand in a shared spreadsheet.

### What you deliver

- The order-to-cash process as a single graph, with one swimlane per team and the key-account variants.
- The list of re-keying steps and off-system approvals, each linked to the excerpt or screenshot behind it.
- Contradictions between teams, resolved through follow-ups or kept as findings.
- Integration and automation opportunities, with the estimated gain as a range and its calculation shown.

### Frequently asked questions

**Does TellMeHow need to connect to the client’s CRM or ERP?**

No. TellMeHow does not connect to the client’s tools: it listens to participants and sees what they share on screen. You can add exports, such as a month of orders, as engagement artifacts to support volume estimates.

**How are exceptions like key accounts handled?**

The analysis represents them as process variants, shown as labeled branches on the map. Each variant keeps its own findings and evidence, so you can see what share of orders actually follows the standard path.

**What does the sales director or CFO who commissioned the audit see?**

The sponsor sees the published deliverable: the process map, findings, the evidence you selected, and opportunities. They see neither full recordings nor complete transcripts, and evidence is attributed by role, never by name.

**Can the audit be used to compare salespeople?**

No. TellMeHow evaluates processes, never people: no ratings, no rankings, no individual comparisons. The audit chat also declines that kind of question.

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- Français : https://tellmehow.io/cas-usage/du-devis-a-l-encaissement.md